Ubuntu :: Write Speed For Hard Disk And / Or Partitions

I have what seems to be a hard disk Write speed problems with my first hard drive. Timing the cp command of a 700 Meg file takes about 8 secs from disk 2 to 3 but takes 25 minutes from disk 2 to disk 1.

Here are the details:
Kubuntu 9.04 (Kernel 2.6.28-15-generic)
Hard Disk 1 : /dev/sda (WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0)
Partitioned
/dev/sda1 ext3 / 10 Gigs
/dev/sda2 extended 222 Gigs
/dev/sda5 linux-swap 2 Gigs
/dev/sda6 ext /home 220 Gigs

Hard Disk 2 : /dev/sdb (WDC WD2500AAKS-00F0A0)
Partitioned :
/dev/sdb1 ntfs 16 gigs
/dev/sdb2 xfs /home/eric/data_drive 216 Gigs
Hard Disk 2 : /dev/sdc (ST3500320AS)
Partitioned:
/dev/sdc1 xfs /home/eric/data_drive2 465 Gigs

By doing 'time cp ...sdb1/test.avi ...sdc1' takes about 8 seconds and same vice-versa. the command 'time cp ...sdb1/test.avi ...sdb1/test1.avi takes about 11 seconds and the same holds true if sdc1 is used But copy sdb1 or sdc1/test.avi to either sda1 or sda6 and it takes 25 minutes. Same problem if I copy from the same drive partition (sda). I have booted a livecd Knoppix 6.2 and the same problems happens.. So safe to say it's not Kubuntu. The only thing that is left to do is backup and reformat the partitions as XFS and try again. I also did a full smartcontrol Extended test and no errors. Checked all the various logs and nothing found.